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Alla is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning producer who joined Washington Week with Gwen Ifill in 2006. She has extensive network news experience covering every major news event in the past two decades including the Oklahoma City bombing, the trial of Timothy McVeigh, the contested 2000 presidential election, the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

From 2000-2004, Lora was a senior producer with MSNBC/NBC in charge of developing live interview segments for more than 60-hours of regular programming and breaking news coverage. She was also part of the team that produced 24/7 coverage of the September 11 attacks and a series of town hall meetings that were honored with Emmy and National Headliners awards.

Lora began her career in local news working in various markets including Cleveland, Cincinnati, Baltimore, New Haven, Connecticut and Washington, DC as a producer, executive producer and assistant news director. She has developed and launched a number of original programs including an Emmy-award-winning special on teen drinking and driving.

Alla grew up in northeast Ohio and is a cum laude graduate of Baldwin Wallace College where she majored in mass communication and business administration.

Jeff Bieber

VP of Content Development and Production

WETA

Executive Producer

Washington Week

Jeff Bieber is a veteran executive producer of public television documentaries, specials, news and cultural programs at WETA, the public broadcasting station for the Greater Washington area. He is responsible for creating and managing major primetime series for PBS, including America at a Crossroads, a series of 20 documentaries about the Iraq War, Terrorism and America’s response to 9/11 and winner of 2008 EMMY and Columbia-DuPont awards; The Mysterious Human Heart, winner of a 2008 EMMY award; The Jewish Americans, a six-hour series that aired in January 2007; Washington Week with Gwen Ifill and National Journal, winner of a 2008 Peabody Award; as well as an six-hour documentary series Latino Americans, winner of a 2013 Peabody Award.

Bieber’s responsibilities include forging media partnerships, fundraising and managing public media campaigns. Bieber has also produced numerous documentaries, news specials, multi-camera music specials at the U.S. Capitol and The Kennedy Center and daily coverage of the WACO, Whitewater, Clarence Thomas Hearings as well as continuous news coverage of the attacks and aftermath of 9/11.

Petrykowski covered the 2016 US presidential election through the lens of the economy with the collaborative, multiplatform reporting project with PBS NewsHour, FRONTLINE, and APM’s Marketplace called “How the Deck Is Stacked.”

Sandy has also covered business, science, and foreign affairs. She began her career in New York City working for ABC News World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, the documentary program “Turning Point” and with Discovery News, a science news show produced by ABC News for the Discovery Channel. She was based in Egypt from 1999 to 2008 where she covered breaking news as well as produced feature stories and documentaries for CNN, The Discovery Channel and NPR, and during her final year there was Bureau Chief for National Geographic.

Petrykowski’s long form work includes: “CNN Presents Egypt: A Test Case for Democracy”; “American Pharaoh” – a film about the Egyptian national soccer team and their American Coach, Bob Bradley, as they tried to navigate a revolution and win a bid for the World Cup, and developing and producing a feature length performance documentary celebrating Duke Ellington’s centennial for PBS Great Performances called “Swingin with Duke: The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis.”

Simon Epstein

Producer

Washington Week

Simon Epstein, is a multiple Emmy award winning producer. Simon’s long-form productions include three historical retrospectives on the District of Columbia for Public television, and the public affairs Specials American War Generals, and The Last Days of Osama bin Laden for the National Geographic Channel. Simon’s work also appears nationally on Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, A&E, and History Channel, as well as a number of international broadcast outlets.

Kaitlyn Roman

Production Assistant

Washington Week

Kaitlyn joined Washington Week in 2017.

She is a 2017 graduate of the Ohio University E.W. Scripps School of Journalism where she studied Broadcast Journalism.

Kaitlyn started her career working as a reporter and producer at the local PBS affiliate in Athens, OH, WOUB-TV.

She also interned in the Political Unit at CBS News during the 2016 Election and worked as a runner at the Republican National Convention in her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio.